Hello

The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on our usual night - Wednesday, May 17th, 2006, in the cafe of Borders Books in Governor's Square Mall. This is located on Wilma Rudolph Blvd. (Hwy 79) south of Exit 4 off I-24 - then head south a bit. The mall is on the left. The meeting begins at 7 PM and it is open to the public. Members please bring a friend or two - new recruits are always welcomed!

This month, Clarksville CWRT President Greg Biggs will present "The Atlanta Campaign - Part One." This campaign is arguably the most important of the entire war for it led to the re-election of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and thus a continuation of the war to its ultimate conclusion.

Beginning in early May, 1864, Union armies moved against Richmond and Atlanta in a combined and coordinated offensive. Supporting these main efforts were several side campaigns. It was an all-fronts offensive designed to defeat the Confederate Army protecting those cities and conclude the war quickly by year's end. Grant's Eastern offensive ran into trouble in the Wilderness where Lee's army slashed back and inflicted massive casualties from May through the summer of 1864. This served to increase war-weariness in the Northern home-front. William T. Sherman, in the same time frame, while moving deeper into Georgia, failed to smash Joe Johnston's Army of Tennessee while yielding lots of territory. Atlanta remained defiant into middle August while Lincoln wrote that he might be voted out of office in the critical November elections.

But all changed on September 2nd with a wire from Sherman proclaiming the capture of the Gate City of the South and the center of its vast industrial heartland. Northern morale rose and, with a series of other Union victories at Cedar Creek and Mobile Bay, Lincoln's election was reassured.

The program will cover the politicians, military strategy and personalities of the campaign and will trace its movements from Dalton, GA through the First Kennesaw Line in June. The second part in August will cover the Second Kennesaw Line through Jonesboro and the surrender of the city. The program will be supported by slides.

Greg Biggs is the president of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable and one of its founding members. He is also president of the Friends of the Ft. Donelson Campaign and a member of the Company of Military Historians. A former Associate Editor for Blue & Gray Magazine, he has had articles published in that forum as well as in Civil War Regiments journal and Citizens Companion. He has contributed research to a number of Civil War books by such authors as Wiley Sword, Larry Daniel and Gordon Rhea and recently worked on the revised book on Civil War flags in the Georgia Capitol Collection. He is also the primary researcher for a new book on Gen. Henry Benning's Georgia Brigade and is also working on his own book on Georgia's Civil War flags. He is a Contributing Editor to the Flags of the Confederacy website (www.confederateflags.org). Greg, who grew up in Georgia, has also conducted tours of the Atlanta Campaign for Civil War roundtables as well as the Ft. Donelson Campaign for Civil War groups and the US Army. He has also spoken to Civil War groups and conferences across the country.

Please join us for "The Atlanta Campaign - Part One" on Wednesday, May 17th!